Red Sun Rising

Chapter 4: Following the Trail

Steven:

I leaned forward, palms on the table and narrowing my eyes in the slightest. "What do you mean? What hunt?"

"Crystal told us about the attack from the other day," Malachi said. "The invisible beast with red tendrils? The TM had warned us to look out for it."

"But Crystal—"

"Excluding Crystal," Malachi finished, looking at me. "The stone, you see, was her task. The beast was ours."

"And," Johnny said, "now that the Omnistone is here..."

"You are now a part of the task," Beatrice said, giving Kento an annoyed look for knocking her down earlier.

Since Kento had taken her seat, she sat down in Benjin's empty one. "To join us guard or to be guarded by us I couldn't really say. But with nothing else to do until Red Hood comes, it is most essential that we hunt the beast and take it down."

I opened my mouth to protest, to say that finding the beast was pointless with Lazlo and Clam in the infirmary. But then I remembered what Lee did and clamped my mouth shut. I couldn't be sure that these thoughts were solely mine anymore.

"Why?" I said instead. Noticing the looks of the others, I continued. "I mean, why is the creature doing this? You said that while Crystal dealt with the stone, you were tasked to hunt the creature down. So it must've attacked before. What's its connection to Red Hood?"

"Back during the War of Reality, Red Hood wasn't the only problem the Organization had to deal with," Malachi said. "There was a time when his powers reached its peak. Despite being a Hood, he could not handle all the power for very long and went mad, turning on the very people who made him what he is."

"He... killed them?" Johnny asked.

"Turned them into a beast?" Max added.

Malachi shook his head grimly at Max before telling Johnny, "Not directly. He summoned up a beast from Chaos, capable of instilling the same discord energy that flows through his veins into other people.

"Claiming it to be an honor, he had the beast attack the Chaos group first. His followers could not handle the pure energy and turned on each other, causing an even bigger uproar than before. They could no longer be reasoned with, their minds far gone as the chaos consumed them."

"And the creature?" Danny asked. "Was it sent back to Chaos?"

"It ran rampant for a few years," Beatrice said, tapping her fingers on the table to an unknown rhythm. "Red Hood made it invisible to the human eye in order for the chaos to have no traceable source. Capturing it was near impossible."

"It nearly succeeded in destroying the worlds," Benjin said, walking around the table. "Thanks to the Organization, the creature was imprisoned with its master. But now..."

"It-escaped. And-now-it's-going-to-finish-the-task-it-started-all-those-years-ago." Kento finished, not speaking as quickly as he did before. The story must've been grim enough to make him pause momentarily in his candy-eating. I noticed his hair slowly lose its purple color and turn back to blonde. His eyes were turning blue when he stuffed a large piece of taffy into his mouth, gaining back his purple features. Kento abruptly stood up. "So-what-are-we-waiting-for? One-hunted-chaos-beast-coming-up! Let's—"

Beatrice grabbed hold of his shirt before he could rush out the door. "Not so fast, Kento. We have to—"

"Yes-yes. Pack-essentials-plan-strategies-etc." Kento then plunked back down in his seat, but he didn't stay there for long. He got up again and stretched his arms over his head. "Well-if-anyone-needs-me-I'll-be-making-rounds-around-the-building. Never-know-when-someone-might-launch-an-attack."